Something I’ve been spitballing for a while having bounced around these two roles heavily. Can’t recount the amount of times I’ve been inconvenienced in both roles by lack of presence by the other, or the amount of times I’ve heavily benefitted from either existing. So why not combine them?
Benefits are as follows;
OT members gaining access to fridges/Chemtech’s independently streamlines their approach to chemistry in a way that doesn’t force the department to depend on medbay/research when they run out of materials - which gives the role more longevity and encourages OT members not to cryo once they run out of materials.
Research members having access to Armylathes simplifies the production of pyrotechnics and lets them directly influence how ordnance is developed.
OT members benefit directly from research improvements without either department needing to go out of their way to support the other.
This increases the gameplay variation for OT immensely and lets them investigate experimental options without sacrificing incredibly limited resources.
Combining and centralizing material support and R&D to a single department makes addressing balance for shipside combat influence easier and more effective.
This also builds the foundations for focusing both departments on experimental weapons development over stims/bigger explosions.
Then the cons:
(At least, the ones I can think of)
OT gains access to infinite chems with no oversight, meaning their only limiting factor is metal supply.
This is functionally already the case, but usually comes with the friction of bothering departments who might be too busy to resupply you.
A way to address this is by tying OT’s explosives production to the biomass resource that Research already does, forcing OTs to be reliant on groundside supply.
Researchers benefit the OT gameplay loop immensely, but the opposite isn’t nearly as true outside of the supplies OT spawns with.
Combining OT and Research would make the resultant R&D department a combination of civilian contractors and military personnel.
(probably a non-con)
So…
I want to gauge how people would feel about this, even if I understand player representation from either role is pretty sparse.
A lot of systems will probably need to be reworked or addressed if the departments are merged, but I can probably focus on adding new properties and tools to encourage both sides to work together, experiment harder, and address the weaknesses of OT as a department alongside Research as a department in relation to the wider balance of the game.
As interesting as the idea is, it seems this discussion is getting attention from people who dislike research than people who play research/OT who would be able to give the best input on whether or not this is good for the game. And no, there’s no legitimate reason to trash research and an entire role with dedicated mains as the previous commenters suggested, even if you don’t like playing against them. If you hate the system so bad, why not suggest improvements and rework the system instead of canning an important role for the marines.
I was actually going to make a post about this, so thank you.
OT is essential the “diet” researcher, it’s a good place to learn about chemicals, mixing and have some guidance for research, which is quite complicated these days. Its skill ceiling is rather limited currently and the things you can make are limited, making it a clear path to researcher.
OT relies on research for anything non-standard. Want to try something new? You are completely dependent on another department, and due to the research changes (which, to me have had the unintended effect of making research MORE minmax heavy, not less), researchers usually won’t indulge someone they won’t see or interact with beyond maybe a phone call or a radio transmission.
Research and OT are also 3 floors apart, which is honestly such an oversight when even the Fax RespondersProvost/High Command have “linked offices” because they are likely going to be working together, yet research and OT do not.
The design philosophy for some of these changes was seemingly to encourage interdepartmental co-operation, but the full gameplay (be it rework or merely the attrition of time) has made that more difficult and needs to be updated to reflect that.
There are likely concerns that there will be “power users” who exploit this. And that may be the case initially, but such things can be balanced out. I also think research is like MP, 95% of the time, they don’t do anything, but everyone notices the 4% of the time they hit the server with a big thing. (Which is it’s own issue which can be addressed separately imo)
I hate the role, have never made a critique about it or research that you could read on the forums or discord, and don’t have more as someone who hates the wider game. “Please only buff” are my only posts. I love other departments arbitrarily limiting their cooperation with me because of how they feel about my role, leaving me to RP with them when they decide that they no longer wish to play their role. Assuming we both haven’t cryo’ed or lost/won one hour in. I haven’t heard my critiques parroted back to me in bad faith, or without justification, and I love all the people who ignorantly already speak of the two departments as one, not missing the point entirely.
I’ll never play this role again! Definitely not the very next round, or the round after that. I get to live my high stakes power fantasy this way and its great for my god complex
As said above, trash bin. Then a rework for X-COM style research with only a little bit of min-maxing spice on top.
Otherwise OT and research both feel like research for whatever reason. OT should be bashing stuff together to came up with stuff approriate to the new threat marines are facing and don’t have dedicated gear to combat. Stuff being ad-hoc, juryrigged and the likes, more like engineers welding metal plates and a gun to a powerloader, less like alchemists mixing powdered puppy eyes 5u with frog saliva 7.5u to make a powerfull explosive. Then when research finds something cool, OT should be the ones to apply that in pratice, gluing xeno chitin to that powerloader instead of metal plates.
We can’t affort to play with half-measures. The core issues with both need to be adressed, before merging two broken systems into one big broken system.
